UNITED NATIONS COMMON LIBRARY, Islamabad

ANNUAL REPORT 2002

Contents:

Þ Part 2. The Collection growth and coverage

Þ Part 3. The Library Use and Users Statistics

Part 1. The New Developments:

1. Launch of the Web Catalogue:

The United Nations Common Library Catalogue Database is now accessible through the World Wide Web, adding to the ease of access and much more convenience for the UN Offices, their staff, consultants, partners, focal points and the students and researchers of the UN in Pakistan or in the world.

The Online Catalogue may be searched anytime, anywhere from the new and updated Library Website at URL: http://www.un.org.pk/library/index.htm. This is the First Web Catalogue in Pakistan offering full search capabilities.

Started in 1997, the UN Common Library Catalogue now contains 11618 bibliographic records referring to the Library holdings. Almost 40 new records are added to this database, every week. The Catalogue was already available online to the UN House LAN users, since November 11, 1999. But the following managerial / technical problems were prohibiting the effective use of this facility.

The access required installation of a search interface on all users’ workstations and re-installation each time the computer was changed or reformatted.

Direct access was impossible for the staff of UN Agencies using their own LAN Servers with firewalls or no access rights for the UN Common Library. In this case, access depended on a local LAN Managers’ copying the updated version of the catalogue database from UNDP LAN Server to the Agency’s own server, every week. For various reasons, the LAN Managers found this practice impracticable.

The new entrants to the UN staff could not come to know about this facility.

Now the WEB CATALOGUE has crossed all the barriers whether managerial or technological or the time or space and reached every desktop of the UN System in Pakistan as well as the world, 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.

The UN Common Library owes special thanks to the UN System in Pakistan for the commendable support for this initiative and also to Mr. Eric Falt, ex-Director UNIC, Mr. Ondre Yucer, UN Resident Representative and Mr. Muhammad Salem, Assistant Resident Representative, for providing the budget to make this major breakthrough possible.

2. The updated Library Web Site:

The library website has been updated to make it more meaningful and easy to use.

3. The New online services:

The following of the online services that we had planned during last year are now ready to be launched and would be formally announced very soon. These services include:

a. E-mail-based alerting service named Thematic Updates e-mails

b. Automated Register of Publications by UN System in Pakistan

c. Online reference Questionnaire

Part 2. The Collection Development:

Our print items' collection, which was 10976, at the start of the year 2002, had reached 12019 volumes at the end of the year. The processing of newly received books remained suspended for a while, still we managed to process 1043 items during the year (mostly by subcontracting). The subject coverage of the Catalog Database is now as follows:

Total title references in Catalog Database = 11618 records

Subject coverage:

AFGHANISTAN	250	ENVIRONMENT	966
AGRICULTURE	3280	INDUSTRY AND TRADE	784
CHILDREN AND YOUTH	373	INTERNATIONAL LAW	74
CULTURE	1089	POPULATION	1605
DRUG and NARCOTICS	119	REFERENCE	528
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT	1987	SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY	275
EDUCATION AND LITERACY	1179	STATISTICS	2702
ENERGY	481	UNITED NATIONS	407
COMMUNITY HEALTH	1259	WATER	1283
HUMANITARIAN AID AND RELIEF	71	WOMEN AND GENDER	591

Part 3. The Library Use and Users Statistics

Total 748 persons (306 female and 442 male) accessed the Library to use its various resources and services. Following is a statistical profile of the users and the use of services.

Apart from the UN staff (175), the largest majority of the users were students (200). Other categories included Govt. Officials (109), Academicians (16), NGO workers (73), researchers (52) doctors (26) and some politicians and diplomats.

1. Access Method

	UN Users	Other Users	Total
Over Phone	24	45	69
In person	150	531	760
By e-mail	-	-	52
Total	175	582	881

2. Subject of Inquiry

AFGHANISTAN	14	COMMUNITY HEALTH	35
AGRICULTURE	46	INDUSTRY AND TRADE	28
CHILDREN AND YOUTH	45	INTERNATIONAL LAW	2
CULTURE	12	POPULATION	17
DRUG & NARCOTICS	9	REFERENCE	5
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT	121	SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY	40
EDUCATION AND LITERACY	75	UNITED NATIONS JOBS	105
ENERGY	5	ABOUT UN	80
ENVIRONMENT	29	WATER	3
General Information	50	WOMEN AND GENDER	29

3. Hours of use

Hours slots	Users	Total use hrs.
1 hrs	313	313 hrs
2 hrs	245	490 hrs
3 hrs	114	342 hrs
4 hrs	31	124 hrs
6 hrs or more	55	495 hrs
TOTAL HOURS OF USE		1764 hrs

Note: This data shows the time spent by the users in the library. It does not reflect the staff time spent on replying the e-mail or phone inquiries.

Services

Ø Total of the book issue/return transactions done by library during the year was 333 (178 books issued and 155 returned).

Ø 39 - New Arrival Lists were produced

Ø 881 - Reference inquiries were answered including 52 Electronic Reference Service queries answered by e-mail

Ø Our Electronic Document Delivery Service delivered 275 items by e-mail. These included, Electronic documents, Statistical Tables and web sites.

Ø 178 users were given search results on 2 - 6 page computer printouts from Library Catalog Database. Users can take these prints with them as a reference bibliography. Some return to see particular items later.

Ø 9248 pages photocopies were obtained by users from our print collection, through our Photocopying Service

January 14, 2003 Bushra Almas Jaswal, UN Librarian